Cork Harbour

CO R K HARBOUR

CAL McCARTHY

MERRION PRESS

Contents Introduction 1 Part I – Military Development 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Battling the French The American Revolution The Fortification of the Harbour Convict Labour and Haulbowline Dockyard World War One

Part II – Commercial Development 6.

7.

8.

9.

Building a Port Running a Port The Trade of Cork The Shipyards of Cork Harbour

Part III – Migration

10. Early Emigration to North America and Australia 11. Steamships and Emigrants 12. Convict Transportation

7 23 35 59 79

109 131 161 171

195 209 233

Conclusion 245 Endnotes 248 Note on Names 269 Appendices 270 Index 277

Introduction

In attempting to write a general history of one of the world’s most significant natural harbours, it was necessary to limit the scale of the project in order that one structured volume can provide a general overview of a lengthy time period. In determining how long that time period should be, it was decided to utilise one of the temporal divisions traditionally employed by historians. The ‘late modern period’ seemed to frame Cork Harbour’s rise to military and commercial prominence which was driven by a decline in the military function of Kinsale Harbour during the eighteenth century. It was decided to terminate the study at the end of World War One. That war was both the greatest, and the last big war in which the harbour played a belligerent part. The war ended at a time when many of the commercial activities that had previously made the harbour most famous had already passed through their most intensive phases. It is hoped that the text is equally accessible for those interested and uninterested in general history. In order to facilitate such access for the latter group it is necessary to briefly explain the lesser known political events that helped to shape Cork Harbour in the modern period.

Cork Harbour had enjoyed a healthy and prosperous trade throughout the centuries since the foundation of a Viking settlement on its upper reaches in the tenth century.

Export of wool, cattle hides, cereals and fish, along with import of cloth, wine, spices, dyes and manufactured goods dominated Cork’s trade. Both import and export trade were conducted predominantly with European ports, with Britain and France accounting for much of Cork’s trade due to their geographic proximity. The seventeenth century saw that ‘Old World’ trade greatly expanded for a number of reasons. First, England

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was in the process of establishing her empire in the Americas. This opened up transAtlantic trade routes and made Cork and Kinsale convenient places for provisioning, repairing, or sheltering British ships heading into, or out of, the Atlantic. Second, Cork city was controlled by a Protestant elite that, as a result of the Tudor conquest, was no longer threatened or extorted by the surrounding Gaelic population. Third, strong Quaker and Huguenot communities developed in Cork city in the latter half of the seventeenth century. These Quaker and Huguenot families went on to establish many successful business enterprises in Cork. Such enterprises needed import and export shipping and the development of the harbour consequently became a priority. Fourth, by the end of the seventeenth century some larger ships were having difficulty in accessing Kinsale Harbour where no such problems were encountered at Cork. Cork’s trade expanded greatly, but with the Navy still focused on Kinsale, the means to protect shipping in Cork Harbour was not always apparent.

England suffered two civil wars in the seventeenth century and each of them made their mark on Cork Harbour. The Parliamentary forces of Oliver Cromwell successfully defeated the Royalist forces of King Charles I between 1642 and 1646. That war ran in parallel with an Irish conflict known as the Confederate Wars. The Confederate Wars were effectively ended by Oliver Cromwell who dispatched his forces to Ireland in 1649. While trying to enter the harbour at Cork those forces came under fire from batteries at its mouth. But it was the second of England’s civil wars some fifty years later that exposed Cork Harbour’s vulnerability.

After Oliver Cromwell’s death, the English monarchy was restored and the Stuart Dynasty reigned until the Roman Catholic James II was deposed by the Protestant, William of Orange in 1688. James II made his way to Ireland in search of Roman Catholic support and a subsequent Civil War between the rival English Kings was fought on Irish soil. James first landed at Kinsale and established a loyal garrison in that harbour and at Cork. William of Orange dispatched his troops to Cork the following year. They were to stifle any hope of French reinforcements for James by securing the harbours of Cork and Kinsale. Upon making the entrance to Cork Harbour, the Williamite ships were engaged by fortifications at the harbour mouth. Having silenced those batteries, they sailed up river and landed at Passage before taking the city of Cork. From there they proceeded to Kinsale and took that harbour’s two defensive forts with assaults from the landward side.1 The very fact that William’s forces sailed into Cork, and not Kinsale, made it clear that the western harbour was considered less vulnerable to an assault from the sea. William ultimately won the war, having had decisive victories at the Battle of Aughrim and the Siege of Limerick.

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The defeat of the Stuart dynasty was not as complete as it might have been. Where Cromwellian forces had executed the King some four decades earlier, the Williamites allowed James II to escape. James II fled to France, and just as he and his brother had done after the Cromwellian wars, he entered into exile there. Louis XIV of France treated the Stuart dynasty as the ruling monarchs of England and allowed them to live in palatial luxury near Paris. The level of respect France afforded to James cannot have endeared Louis XIV to William III, and tension between their kingdoms began to emerge.

Thus, by the early 1700s the combination of an emerging trans-Atlantic trade and a growing mercantile elite was transforming Cork into an important commercial centre. That increasing commercial importance came at a time of continuous political tension between Britain and France which in turn, led to a military transformation of Cork Harbour. While military and commercial imperatives interacted to drive Cork Harbour’s development, a third major theme entered its narrative. Migration to and from the harbour had been a part of its story since the earliest times. But it was in the later modern period that mass emigration from Cork Harbour became a dominant force in shaping its development. The later modern period saw commercial development, military development and migration become the three driving forces in Cork Harbour’s progression. Each of these forces was partially shaped by the other two.Nonetheless, for the sake of clarity and structure, each of these three themes is examined separately, but not independently or in isolation. We begin by looking at the military development of Cork Harbour.

Introduction

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Part I

Military Development

1 Battling the French

W

ILLIAM III OPPOSED LOUIS XIV during the Nine Years’ War (1688–97) as Louis sought to extend French influence in continental Europe. France and Britain clashed again during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), each supporting alternative claimants to the Spanish throne.

These conflicts spilled over into the North American Colonies administered by Britain and France. Consequentially trans-Atlantic shipping was affected and Cork took on some strategic importance for the Royal Navy as it sought to protect its shipping from French attack. Nonetheless, the Royal Navy’s presence in Kinsale Harbour meant that naval operations against the French were directed from that port. Kinsale was further west and thus even better placed to direct operations in the Eastern Atlantic. Further East, Cork Harbour remained vulnerable to the activities of the primary terror of the eighteenth-century seas – privateers.

A privateer was a privately owned vessel licenced by its state of origin to raid and plunder enemy shipping as it desired. In return for the services of these legalised pirates, the states that licensed them received a percentage of their booty, and the reassurance that the enemy’s ships were being harassed by experienced seamen with profit as their primary motive. As French privateers patrolled the Eastern Atlantic in search of British ships returning from North America, British privateers dealt out precisely the same treatment to French merchantmen returning to their country. The southwest coast of Ireland became a hotbed of privateering activity as privateers cruised in search of merchantmen, and naval forces sought to capture, or even sink, those privateers.

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Though privateering is often compared to piracy, and crews sometimes resorted to the latter when privateering licences were not obtainable, privateering may have been slightly less violent than its illegal counterpart. A pirate’s objective was to steal cargo by any means necessary. Consequently, as long as he could escape with his plunder he did not care about the ship or the crew from which he stole. In order to operate their trade legally however, privateers had to land their cargo at a port in their country of origin.

This usually involved sparing most of the lives of the crews they raided, and almost always sparing the ship, as they needed both to land their cargo. In his study of Kinsale Harbour, John Thuillier described privateering off the south coast of Ireland as follows: Privateering … aimed to minimise damage to enemy ships at a time when conflict at sea was characterised by severe violence and bloodletting. The objective was to capture the cargo, the ship and the crew who were needed to sail the vessel. Instead of using a cannon in attacking a vessel, grappling hooks were heaved, fouling gunwales to draw the ships together and in the process reducing damage to masts, spars and rigging. Often this was followed by hand to hand combat until the crew of the captured vessel surrendered.1

Kinsale Harbour from the harbour mouth to the site of the naval dockyard. (Author’s Collection)

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There were probably instances where privateers plundered the cargo and sank enemy shipping without reporting the encounter. However, in such cases the cargo could not be landed legally and privateers risked the wrath of revenue officials who would then declare them smugglers. Whatever tactics they employed, as the eighteenth century progressed, increasing numbers of privateers began to operate in close proximity to Cork.

More than 100 years later, in their famous account of a journey through Ireland, Mr & Mrs S.C. Hall described privateering in Cork during the early years of the eighteenth century: During the early part of the last century, numerous are the anecdotes related of the daring exploits of hostile privateers and pirates performed actually within Cork Harbour and in full view of the town of Cove – if town it could then be called – and its population. In one instance the custom house officers were made prisoners and carried off ‘to larn them to spake French,’ as was jocularly remarked. In another, after the enemy had taken on board supplies of water and fresh provisions they cut out such merchant vessels as they considered to be worth the trouble of carrying off. Soon after this occurrence insulting notices were posted in the city of Cork boasting of the achievement and inviting the citizens generally, some of them by name, to an entertainment, on a particular day, which was appointed, as an acknowledgement of the ready sale their goods had met with; and, strange as it may seem, the entertainment took place. These and similar outrages conceived in the most wanton spirit, and executed in the most reckless manner, were, almost without exception, the acts of Irishmen intimately acquainted with the localities, who had entered into foreign services. Some of such enterprises were executed under letters of marque (of which we have seen one) from the Pretender and many very romantic stories are told of the semi warlike, semi-friendly intercourse carried on between the residents upon the southern coast of Ireland and ‘the wild geese,’ as the Irish metaphorically termed their expatriated relatives and friends.2 The account is probably as much folklore as fact, but like most folklore it probably has some basis in truth. The ‘Pretender’ referred to is quite likely the son of James II, James Francis Edward Stuart, who was nicknamed ‘the Old Pretender’. He was exiled in France along with the rest of the Stuart dynasty, but after the death of Louis XIV and

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a failed attempt to seize power in Scotland, he re-located his exiled court to Rome on the invitation of the Pope. A vessel suspected of being in the service of the Stuarts was captured and brought into Cork in 1745. This event was celebrated by granting the freedom of the city to the Commander of the capturing British vessel.3 But could French privateers under licence from either French or Stuart authorities really sail into Cork Harbour? Incredibly, it seems that they could.

While the Stuart monarchy remained exiled in Rome, the Old Pretender’s son (who would become known as Bonnie Prince Charlie) set about trying to secure French support for another invasion of his grandfather’s former kingdom. Eventually he succeeded in securing such support and led a failed invasion of Scotland in 1745–46. However, the British authorities had been concerned that such an invasion could happen in Ireland several years earlier. Whether as part of a campaign of Stuart restoration or otherwise, the British expected a French invasion of Ireland in 1740 and they planned accordingly. Their plans give us a very sound insight into why it was that French privateers might have sailed freely into Cork Harbour during the first half of the eighteenth century.

Major General John Ligonier was the senior army officer in Cork in 1740 and he was ordered to plan his defence against any French invasion of that part of the kingdom. Envisioning a co-operative effort between naval forces in Kinsale, and soldiers stationed all over Cork, he wrote as follows: I have ordered the King’s officers at Baltimore and Skibbereen near Cape Clear to keep a good look out with the King’s boats and upon any appearance of tall ships, or anything resembling a squadron of Men of War, or a fleet of Transports, to send immediately an express to Colonel Irwin at Kingsale and one to me at Cork. Colonel Irwin is to have a trusty man at the lighthouse at Kingsale and patrols, thro’ the day, upon the old road from whence they can discover a sail almost as far as Cape Clear. The King’s boats at Cove and Kingsale to be constantly out to give notice of anything that appears to approach the harbours.4 The plan goes on to detail the mobilisations of troops in Bandon, Midleton and Castlemartyr and their march to assist the Cork city garrison, should news of an enemy sighting reach Kinsale or Cork. Yet its most telling paragraph explains that any enemy invasion was likely to sail into Cork Harbour before making landfall: ‘As the enemy, if they design for this part of the Kingdom, must by necessity land at Passage, they will

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have it in their option, beyond a possibility of our preventing it, to march either to Cork or to Kingsale.’5 If the enemy advanced on Kinsale it was planned to send the Cork garrison to attack their rear. If they advanced on Cork, an elaborate reception was planned involving artillery and entrenched infantry. However, what is most curious was the acceptance that an enemy fleet could not be prevented from sailing into the harbour and landing troops at Passage. Indeed part of the defence of Cork city specified that: ‘At the first alarm all the shipping and boats in the harbour are to come into the canals, except what will be necessary to make communications’.6 There was no expectation that the French could be prevented from landing troops in Cork Harbour and attacking any shipping that they found anchored in its lower reaches. The reason was that Cork Harbour had no effective land-based defences.

Since the Royal Navy preferred Kinsale, that harbour had two major artillery instillations on either side of its entrance. Although James Fort and Charles Fort had demonstrated vulnerability to land attack during the Williamite wars, they remained deterrents to enemy shipping considering raiding Kinsale Harbour. Cork Harbour had no such deterrents. Originally dating from at least the mid-sixteenth century, the installations at Ram’s Head and Dog’s Nose had been enhanced but had proven incapable of withstanding a seaborne landing during the Williamite wars and had since fallen into ruin. Likewise, fortifications on Battery Point lay derelict and abandoned. In the upper harbour, Elizabeth Fort’s major function had always been the protection of the city, and it too had fallen during the Williamite wars. A small fort had been erected on Haulbowline in the early seventeenth century and was used to protect shipping anchored in front of that island. However, as traffic through the harbour increased, and ships were forced to anchor further down the river, those ships were left vulnerable to attack and ‘some had been cut out’ by privateers raiding within the harbour.7 Such a situation could not be allowed to prevail, and thus began the first phases of re-fortifying Cork Harbour.

Cove Fort began construction on the Southern shore of Great Island in 1745. The installation consisted of a sizeable barracks, a small infirmary, and an eight-gun battery.

The fort cost £27,000 to construct and its critics later labelled it an expensive folly on the part of the Chief Engineer of Ireland, Mr Arthur Jones Neville. It was claimed that Neville, who had recently purchased his title, was advised of the fort’s absurd site and asked to consider construction upon the ruins of the more strategically placed forts at Ram’s Head and Dog’s Nose. If such advice was received it was steadfastly ignored.

The walls of Cove Fort were so weak that it was later considered that one broadside by

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A Plan of Cove Fort from 1781. (The National Archives, Kew)

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The site of Cove Fort’s lower battery as it is today. (Author’s Collection)

an enemy frigate could have collapsed them in ruins on top of the battery and that ‘a small firing of its guns would reduce it to a heap of ruins without the assistance of the enemy’.8 Yet, as the Anglo French military conflicts continued, and Kinsale Harbour remained the main anchorage for the Royal Navy, Cove Fort was to remain Cork Harbour’s only major military installation for the next four decades.9 As Cove Fort was completing its construction, the War of the Austrian Succession was raging across Europe. Once again, Britain and France were on opposite sides of a major dispute regarding the rightful heir to a European throne. This time, France and Prussia had disputed the right of Maria Theresa to succeed to the Austrian throne. Britain had backed the Austrian armies against Prussia and France, and war had once again spilled over to the British and French Colonies in North America. As had been the case during the war of the Spanish succession some thirty years earlier, British shipping to and from the Americas came under threat. A report written to the Admiralty from Kinsale in March 1744 gives a first-hand account of how the naval authorities watched the movements of privateers and sought to intercept them where possible:

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The Old Head of Kinsale. Privateers sometimes raided shipping near this headland. (Author’s Collection)

Yesterday … an account from Cork that on the 26 February came into that port the Daagerard from Rotterdam and Falmouth Lewis Lopes Mas. who on the 15th Inst. about 8 leagues SW from Cape Clear spoke with two French privateers one called the Lis of 36 guns belonging to St Malloes and Nantz.

They cruized in consort but had taken nothing.

The 25 Febry [sic] the Daagerard spoke with his Magest. Ship Anglesea close in with Cape Clear.

The 1 inst arrived in Cork Harbour the The Thorloe and Blake privateers of what Force my letters do not mention and brought in a French privateer whose force and where taken not mentioned. They spoke the 15 inst. 100 legs.

ENE ½ E from Cape Clear with his Majestys ships Sunderland and Chester a cruizing.

On the 3rd Inst arrived there a sloop from Ostend the Master of which gives an acct. that on the 21 past he was taken 20 legs. SSW from Cape Clear

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by the Grand Turk a St Malloes privateer of 40 guns and 450 men but it blowing fresh and a very great sea they could not send a boat aboard him and in the night he made his escape. He describes her to be very high out of the water in her head a Turk with a Seymeter in his hand. All about her main mast very like an English man, her quarter deck came as far forward as her main mast but had no guns on it that he could see ...

I thought it proper to dispatch an express with a letter of these advices directed to the Capt. of the Anglesea off Cape Clear or to the Captain of any other of His Majesty’s ships off that place and gave him an account that His Majesty’s ship Port Mahon was ready to saile [sic] from Cork with nine saile [sic] two of which are of four hundred tons each laden with provisions for Gibraltar.10 It seems that the authorities had a policy of gathering intelligence regarding privateering activity from all ships coming into port, and then rapidly dispatched that intelligence in small fast cutters to the larger gunships patrolling the coast. And it seems that while the naval station remained at Kinsale, most of the commercial and military shipping was already operating to and from Cork. As the decades advanced, so did the Royal Navy’s tactics, but the threat of privateers continued to arise periodically.

The threat arose again as France and Britain clashed in the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). This war again raised the difficulties posed by a poorly defended harbour at Cork. Lieutenant General Skinner, the Chief Engineer of Great Britain, surveyed the harbour and recommended that the old fortifications at Ram’s Head, Dog’s Nose and Haulbowline should be reinstated along with a new fortification on Spike Island and a greatly enhanced fortification at Battery Point. His plan met opposition in Government circles, however, and Cove Fort remained Cork’s only defence.11 During this period Cork hosted various British licensed privateers from time to time. The danger of privateering was often evident such as when ships like Fox Hunter failed to return to port after going out in search of French vessels in 1756. It is likely that she was sent to the bottom or captured by the French Navy. In September 1757 two privateers based in Cork were said to be taken by a French man-of-war and escorted to France.12 The French Navy was not the only danger that might be encountered by British or Irish privateers operating in the waters south of Cork. They could also be attacked by French privateers who sought to re-plunder any plunder aboard the British or Irish vessels. In July 1757, a Cork-based privateer was forced to put into Waterford Harbour in a shattered condition having engaged a French privateer of superior fire-

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power.13 The crews of these vessels lived each day in the shadow of death and often behaved accordingly. They were dangerously violent men as is evidenced by their mutinying and turning on their own commanders aboard City of Cork in 1758. As the name would imply the ship was registered in Cork and had been intermittently cruising off the south coast in search of shipping for at least twelve months. On 10 October 1757, she entered the port of Kinsale having captured enemy shipping.14 Yet less than a year later some of her crew sought to steal from their own commanders while the ship lay at anchor in Cork. A contemporary newspaper described the events as follows: Yesterday the City of Cork Privateer, Capt. Rawson, arrived here from a cruize and this day the greater part of her crew confined their officers to the cabin, and forced from their side, a lighter, (that had brought provisions for their use) and endeavoured to get ashore, but some on board well effected to the owners, made a signal to a Man of War that lay near them, of their distress upon which the Man of War manned her longboat and pursued them, at whom the Privateer men fired, which was returned. This being perceived on board the Man of War, they loaded two of their great Guns with small Shot, which they let fly at the Lighter and killed two Men on the Spot and wounded some others after which they very readily pressed the Remainder. One of the kill’d ’tis said belonged to the lighter.15 A few days later the same newspaper reported that the ringleader of the mutiny, a John Matthews, had been committed to the city gaol for the theft of ‘musquets [sic] bayonets, ammunition & c.’ during the mutiny.

As Spain had sided with France during the Seven Years’ War her privateers also conducted raids off the British Isles. In December 1862, one large Spanish privateer captured four cargo ships bound for Cork, Poole, Glasgow and Africa off the south and west coasts of Ireland.16 Cork was now so synonymous with this activity that the British prime minister, William Pitt, was said to have called the harbour a ‘prolific nursery of privateers’.17 British and Irish trade also suffered greatly at the hands of the Royal Navy itself who deliberately cut off all mercantile trade with their French enemy. This came at great cost to the merchants of Cork, who still sought to use the harbour in maintenance of their trade with France. Such trade could be risky while a perpetual state of hostility (if not war) existed between Britain and France. In the days prior to the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, Britain cut off trade with France before they signed any formal declaration of war. Cork’s merchants (and no doubt merchants across the British Isles)

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were badly affected as some of their merchandise was already inbound from France.

The following newspaper report outlines what happened when French brandy arrived in Cork after the imposition of the trade embargo: Last Monday the Betsy of Cork, Capt. John O Sullivan, arrived in the river from Bordeaux; she was soon after seized by a Lieutenant of the Navy, stationed on board the tender at Cove: Capt. Sullivan is confined on board his own ship, and his crew are prisoners on board the Tender. This ship is laden with Wines and Brandy, for Account of the Merchants of this city, and had been detained in France for two or three months. The Lords of the Admiralty have given orders to all the Men of War and ships in the Government’s service to detain all ships coming from that Country.18 Although we have already seen that merchant ships from neutral nations could supply intelligence to British naval authorities, they also had to exercise caution when sailing in Irish waters. Those that carried cargo bound for France were targets for the Royal Navy who might seize them and their cargo on the pretext that trade with France was illegal. Even those that were unfortunate enough to have to put in to Irish harbours in heavy seas, did so with the probability of enormous commercial loss. One vessel that encountered such bad luck was the Dutch ship that put into Cork Harbour on Christmas day 1758 with a cargo of sugar, cocoa and cotton. She was detained by Captain O Brien’s Colchester man-of-war under suspicion of having French property aboard.19 Having recovered from the attempted mutiny, the City of Cork privateer intercepted a Dutch vessel shipping wine and brandy from France some two months later.20 The Seven Years’ War also saw Britain deploying a tactic she had used since the tail end of the seventeenth century. She sought to protect her shipping by sending naval convoys out with merchant ships. Typically, these convoys would escort ships between the English ports and Kinsale or Cork. From these harbours the same escorts (or others) would journey some distance into the Atlantic with the trade convoy until the likelihood of encountering French or Spanish privateers had diminished. Then they often awaited eastbound shipping to convey them and their cargos safely back to Cork or Kinsale. Shipping was deliberately delayed in Irish harbours in order to ensure that vast fleets could move together under the protection of His Majesty’s gunships. The size of these fleets and the ships of which they were comprised grew considerably during the Seven Years’ War. With the largest merchant fleets in the world now congregating in the harbour, Cork began its golden age and the locals reacted to the novelty:

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A View of the Taking of Quebec: September 13th 1759. Cork dispatched many British ships to the North American theatre of the ‘Seven Years War.’ (Anne SK Browne Military Collection, Brown University)

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Cork March 4. Last Friday His Majesty’s ships the Windsor and Dover, with the Indiamen and the Dover’s prize, sailed out of the harbour for London, and at the same Time, sailed His Majesty’s ships Roebuck and Lively with the Convoy for the West Indies, the whole fleet consisting of 91 Sail made a most charming Appearance, Multitudes of people went down to Cove to see them sail.21 This new age of increasingly extensive convoys setting out under protection of His Majesty’s warships was partially responsible for the shift in dynamic between Cork and Kinsale. Kinsale was rapidly becoming too small and too shallow to anchor vast fleets of ships that would require significant depth in which to operate. Indeed the Navy had been aware of the difficulties that larger ships had in accessing Kinsale since 1694, when their own ships had encountered such difficulty. The merchant fleets which had assembled there, now sought out alternative locations.22 Cork’s deep-water channels meant that the very largest ships could enter that harbour at any state of tide. Although some argued that the long river journey from the city to the lower harbour made Cork a less convenient option than Kinsale for the victualling of naval ships, the growth of Cork city and its capacity to provide supplies to British troops, rendered that argument increasingly redundant. By 1698 the city had an ‘agent for the Commissioners of Victualling at Cork’ which was then a larger urban conurbation than Glasgow, Liverpool or Birmingham.23 Although the Navy’s most senior officers remained stationed in Kinsale, the ships that they commanded began to use Cork Harbour with increasing frequency. One of the ways in which they utilised the harbour was for the shipping of troops to and from America, where the Seven Years’ War had broken out in the form of ‘the French and Indian War’. During this conflict, British and French Colonials were allied with various Native American tribes. As the war escalated Britain needed to send more troops to her Colonials. These troops were still supplied from naval stores in Kinsale, but those supplies were frequently sent by road to the large troop ships in Cork’s lower harbour.24 Those ships anchored in the lower harbour and took on troops from many of the garrisons in Munster. Sometimes troops in Cork city, were sent down the river in smaller craft to join the transports before their departure.25 Cork Harbour was becoming a more vibrant and internationally relevant harbour and much of this progress was due to the British and French continually waging war on each other. The intensification of this militarisation meant that Kinsale could no longer handle the traffic associated with His Majesty’s fleets, and Cork Harbour was quickly becoming the alternative. Yet, like all harbours, it was at the mercy of the elements. Just as the Seven Years’ War was reviv-

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ing its fortunes, Cork was subjected to the worst storm in living memory and carnage followed. A newspaper reported: Yesterday evening eraly [sic] a very violent wind at S.S.E. began and from 7 o’clock untill [sic] 11 at night it blew so hard that the oldest man here never remembered the like; in the storm, its said, a coaster from Yougall, Capt.

Keefe, laden with butter, was lost near Cove and the crew perished. All the ships at Cove drove and did incredible damage. The foremast of the Pondicherry (the Dover’s Prize) was carried away, several boats laden with corn were overset.

Tis feared that great damage has happened to the ships that were anyways engaged with the coast.

The ships at Black Rock and Passage suffered very little in the storm, but a vast number of lighters and boats have been put ashore in the river, and great damage done.

His Majesty’s ship the Seaford, of 20 guns arrived at Cove last Night.

It is reported that all last night a continual firing of guns were heard at Cove and supposed to be from ships that wanted relief; but it was impossible for any boat to go out.26 At a time when people and goods were predominantly moved by sea, such setbacks were common. However, shipping was necessary; shipping would go on. Cork Harbour was about to become the harbour of choice for all westbound traffic from the world’s most powerful country.

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